


What He Likes

by Mazarin221b



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Character Study, F/M, Mind Games, Scandal in Belgravia, no explicit sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-31
Updated: 2012-07-31
Packaged: 2017-11-11 03:11:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazarin221b/pseuds/Mazarin221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I know a policeman. Well, I know what he likes." - Irene Adler</p><p> </p><p>  <i>He is always amazed at how a simple “May I see you?” spoken over the phone can tell his Mistress so much about his state of mind.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	What He Likes

The red ropes coil around his ankles and through the openwork bedframe in a swirl of color and complicated knots and tucks that look absolutely beautiful, but without a doubt will never come loose no matter how hard he thrashes.

The red aren’t his favorite, he has to admit, but that’s not his place anyway. She does it on purpose, just to see if he’ll hold as still as she asks as she winds them around his skin, pulling them almost bruisingly tight. He always does hold still, offering his submission quietly, with dignity. It’s what she wants, after all, and when she cocks her dark head and smiles that sharp little smile with blood-red lips he wants nothing more than to hand himself over into her keeping, her partiality for pain and walking the fine edge of his control be damned.  She does so love to push, and the look of disappointment on her face when he broke, just once, is enough to keep him focused and obedient.

“You’ve not been to see me for weeks. Keeping busy?” she asks, as she drags one long, scarlet-tipped finger down his chest and he arcs from the bed with the pleasure of it.

“Yes,” he whispers. “New case this afternoon.”

“You’ll have to tell me about it,” she says as she pulls the suede flogger from her cabinet, spins back toward him in a graceful swirl of green negligee. She never wears black with him, he notes absently as she approaches, gently tapping the tails of the flogger against her thigh.  “But after. Someone needs taking care of, would you agree?”

“Yes, Mistress,” he sighs, and gasps with blinding, white hot arousal at the sting of the first stroke.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

If he’s ever seen someone who is supposed to be dead in one country turn up in the boot of a car in another country, he’ll be damned if he can remember.

It seems to have baffled even Sherlock, who airily snipes that he has at least eight ideas as he darts about, gathering information with that magpie mind of his, accumulating everything effortlessly, processing it smoothly into clear lines of cause and effect.

It’s never been that easy for him. He’s learned a few tricks over the years to help him, and years of experience and the trust in his own gut instinct have done the rest.  He envies Sherlock’s easy grace, his slim, energetic body and the swaggering confidence that pulls everyone and everything into his orbit, whether they want to be there or not. He didn’t even have a choice, when it was his turn to have that laser sharp focus turned on him.

Christ. He’s tense, stress about the case and weeks of pent up arousal making him itch under his skin, leaving him worrying at the skin around his thumb with his teeth until Sherlock stands up and eyes him with a blistering look of impatience and annoyance.

“I’ll text you,” he says, and swans off, John following him with an apologetic shrug and resigned twist of his lips.

It’s days like this Carole never could understand, the weight of it all pressing down on him, the pressure building inside until he was unable to think, decide, wrap his head around the thoughts and facts and information chasing their way around his brain. He would fall at her feet on the worst days (thank God those days were few and far between), beg her do something, anything, to make it stop. To relieve him of the pressure of decision just for a little while.

The contemptuous look she’d give him even as she tied him to the bed and fucked him blind always lingered, longer than the relief she’d grudgingly give.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

He is always amazed at how a simple “May I see you?” spoken over the phone can tell his Mistress so much about his state of mind.

“I’ve had a cancellation. Come at three.”

“Yes,” he sighs, relieved, and leaps for the shower and a fresh change of clothes.  Her intimacies were never that intimate, she never used her lips on his skin, or her body to pleasure his, but that’s not what he wants from her. She knows how his mind twists and turns on itself, and how to right it with a bright stripe of pain that lances the blackness from his thoughts.

He’s on the step at two-fifty-eight, obedient to the rule to never be more than five minutes late or five minutes early, lest her clients meet each other inadvertently. Even being here is damning, though he knows he’s not nearly important enough to have the press following him about.

Kate answers his ring and ushers him into the front room, leaving him with her quiet, wry smile that always unnerves him slightly. He pushes it out of his mind and strips, places his clothes on the small chair by the door as required and kneels in the center of the room, his hands clasped behind his back. He tips his chin up proudly, keeps his eyes on the door, and waits.

His mind drifts for a few moments, back to Carole. She’d called last night, out of the blue, more than a year after she’d left. “I miss you,” she said frankly. “I’d like to try again, if we can. I know how things are, but, if you could help, perhaps I could learn.”  He’s not sure he believes her, or trusts that she’d keep her word. He’s finally managed to find balance in his life, the thing he’d been searching for and never thought he’d find.  His Mistress is a perfect fit for him, nothing more complicated between them  than a friendly business relationship. If he goes back to Carole he has no intention to stop seeing his Mistress; having this, having _her,_ would keep everything coherent. He doubts Carole would accept it, though.

The door opens and he suppresses a relieved sigh. She crosses the room and stands in front of him, a riding crop tapping against the outside of one blue-clad thigh.

“You _are_ tense,” she says, and caresses his cheek.  He arches into the slide of the crop across his shoulders and down his back, and jumps a little at the sharp snap on his arse. The sting is momentary but the arousal instant, and when she twists his arms up behind his back and begins the intricate process of binding them there, he shudders.

“Soon,” she whispers, and when she’s done, she retrieves her gleaming gold and black phone from the table. He eyes it warily as she walks behind him and snaps a few pictures.

“You said no photographs,” he bristles, shifts against the burn in his shoulders.

“Oh no, just of my handiwork. I like this one, don’t you?”  She holds the screen in front of his face and yes, the only thing visible is the line of intricate knots snaking their way up his back and his arms, a criss-cross of black rope that stands out in a beautifully interlocked pattern across his skin. The sight of it, what it looks like, what he must look like, sends a spark of arousal down his spine.

His admiration must show on his face because she smiles as she slips his favorite ball gag into his mouth, the large one that stretches his jaw and forces the sharpening of his concentration simply to breathe and not choke on his own saliva.  “That’s my gorgeous boy,” she coos. “So strong. But you’ve always been strong, haven’t you?” The whip arcs down in a blur, a lance of pain across his thigh and he doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch, merely takes a deep, cleansing breath and blinks up at her, pleading for more.

Yes, she does so know what he likes.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

“Chap found a hiker with his head bashed in next to a stream. Oddest thing—not a sign of anyone else anywhere, except the bloke who found him, and he’s just as lost as the rest of us. Said he was trying to get his car started, noticed the man at the stream, and when he tried to turn the car over it backfired. When he got back out the hiker was dead on the ground.”  He takes the last few bites of cheese and fruit, washes everything down with cool, clear water. He’d say this for his mistress – her aftercare was always sublime. Then again, the exorbitant price he paid for her services would lend itself to that.

“And you have no idea how the hiker was killed?” she asks, rapt, eyes shining with fascination. She always loves to hear about his cases, especially the odder ones. Like Sherlock, in her way, her mind brilliant and sharp, but he knows she finds more comfort in her interactions with people than Sherlock ever could.

“Not yet, but we will soon. I think we’ll ask Sherlock to help. If he will, the picky bastard.”

“Sherlock Holmes?” she asks. “He’s the consulting detective, the one on the internet.” She pulls out her sleek little phone again and fiddles with it for a second before putting it on the table. “Is he really as brilliant as everyone says?”

“More,” he replies, and spears a final strawberry.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“What the bloody ever-loving hell are you two doing here?” he snaps at John, who is sitting on the floor of his Mistress’s bedroom and holding up the head of an unconscious and drooling Sherlock, who looks like he’s been beaten about the head and hands. “And what’s happened to Sherlock?”

“He’s been drugged,” John says, and relinquishes control to the paramedics that have arrived to check Sherlock’s vitals. He stands and brushes off his jeans and glances around. “And we were held hostage by the Americans downstairs for a while, until we took care of it.”

His mind buzzes for a moment. “So, who did this, then?” he asks, gesturing toward Sherlock.

“Oh, Irene Adler. This is her house, by the way, but she’s gone. Bang out the window in nothing but Sherlock’s coat.”

He thinks for a wild second that perhaps Sherlock was involved in a scene gone horribly awry, but John is here, so that theory is right out.  He assumes. Hopes, maybe, because the idea of the two of them is frankly unnerving.

“Mmmmph,” Sherlock grumbles from the floor.

“Are you sure it was Miss Adler?” he asks, because this sort of incident is so far removed from his experiences in this house that the idea is having trouble seating itself properly. “What were you two doing here, anyway?”

“She has something Sherlock was asked to retrieve. And I think the men downstairs were after the same thing. Cameraphone, with some pictures. Sherlock had it, but you see what she did to get it back.” John gestures to Sherlock, up on a gurney and muttering incoherently.

His stomach drops out but he holds his expression as neutral as possible. She had to have been blackmailing clients, then. Jesus, how could he have been so trusting, so stupid? If word got out that he was here, that he was on a client list, or, sweet Christ, if pictures turned up somewhere, he was as good as fired.  As far as he knew, though, there were no recognizable pictures of him, unless there were hidden cameras someplace. A quick scan of the house might not be a bad idea.

“I’m going to take him home,” John says, interrupting his increasingly panicked thoughts. “She said this should wear off soon.” He looks at Sherlock, now with slitted eyes and a spot of drool on his chin. He hates to admit it, but he feels a bit of grudging admiration for his Mistress, that she got the drop on Sherlock like that. At least she didn’t hurt him too badly.

“Oysters!” Sherlock slurs, and he and John snicker. Oh, now, he at least has to get something worthwhile from this debacle and pulls out his phone, presses record.

“We’ll be overrun! The entire world an oyster bed! John, fetch th’ lemons, tha’s good.” Sherlock trails off into incomprehensibility, then promptly rolls off the gurney onto the floor.

“Okay, you’ve had your gloat, put that away and help me get him in a cab.” John says, curling his arms gently under Sherlock’s armpits.

Lestrade helps him up, assists John in guiding the still half-lucid Sherlock down the stairs and out onto the front pavement, and tries hard not to think that his carefully balanced life has just been thrown miserably out of sorts once again.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Christmas really is the worst time of year, he decides, as he mounts the steps of 221 Baker Street for a Christmas ‘do he promised John he’d come to. He’s really supposed to be on his way to Dorset, Carole somehow convincing him that another go would be worth it. He’s not even sure why he’s making the attempt, but he supposes it’d be easier, for Katie. Won’t work, though, and he knows it.

One more try won’t kill him, he supposes, and it may ease the guilt at the back of his mind.

He’s not seen Irene since he’d picked Sherlock up off of her floor in September. The conflict tears at him – he misses her commanding voice, her charm, her beauty, her understanding. But she’s wanted for questioning at the least, though Sherlock told him that Mycroft, for his part, had decided not to pursue the matter any further.

It’s been a rough few months, though, and the few discreet advertisements he’d answered weren’t doing much to help him settle his mind.

He sighs and grabs a drink from the kitchen. Christmas with Sherlock and John is exactly of a piece with his expectations—sniping and sarcasm and Sherlock being a complete arse to everyone around ( _I know she’s shagging the teacher, I’m not bloody stupid_ , he wants to say, but it seems more humiliating, somehow), so it’s with a bit of shock that he watches Sherlock finally break down  and apologize to Molly for opening her heart for the entire room to see, even going so far as to kiss her on the cheek and wishing her a happy Christmas. The look on John’s face confirms what he himself is thinking: something’s got Sherlock in a twist, but damned if he knows what it is.

When Sherlock’s phone sighs and sends him diving for a shiny red package on the mantelpiece as John presses him for an explanation, he figures it’s time for him to leave. No sense getting caught up in any more weirdness tonight, tomorrow was going to be hard enough on its own, teacher or no teacher.

“Sorry, Greg,” John says, coming back into the kitchen. “He’s had a bit of news.”

He settles his coat on his shoulders, wraps his scarf around his neck. “Yeah? Everything okay?”

“You remember Irene Adler?” John asks and his fingers still on his coat buttons.

“Yeah?”

“Sherlock thinks she’s dead. I’m afraid he’s not going to take it well.”

Lestrade sucks in a breath, tries to keep his face as neutral as possible, though his stomach is clenching and his heart is tight. It’s not…he can’t believe it.

But when Sherlock stalks past him, a familiar phone clutched in his hand, Lestrade realizes he may have to.

He holds his head up, takes a deep, steadying breath.  His Mistress never did like to see him break.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, as is obvious by the end, this is Lestrade/Irene, but not exactly a relationship, you know? Not in any traditional sense. But it seemed so fitting to me I just had to write it.
> 
> Thanks to Thisprettywren, HiddenLacuna, and Gillian for the beta.


End file.
